I want to be Walker Evans
or Robert Frank setting up shots
in the street—renegades
in Brooks Brothers suits
with Leicas draped on their chests
snapping shots of the downtrodden,
of churches, bits of billboard, bored
debutantes at posh parties
you'd have to fast-talk your way into;
or aboard an ocean liner, itching
to disembark; down in the boiler room
waiting for the foreman to look away
so you can frame his profile
with an arabesque of pipes
and release valves. I'd want to be out
on assignment taking far fewer rolls
than I'm being paid for, down
south alongside sharecroppers
and the sunburnt poor—trying to steal
moments, not souls, to find the past
inside the present, catch the already
falling out of fashion.
The photographer and the artist, the musician and the poet all comment on the experience of the worker and the working poor. The FSA photographers were great artists - but they, too, needed a job. This poem came to me today in my email from American Public Radio and it seemed that it needed to be a part of the exhibit. Find the entire Writer's Almanac for the week of May 7, 2007 here
American Image
I want to be Walker Evans
or Robert Frank setting up shots
in the street—renegades
in Brooks Brothers suits
with Leicas draped on their chests
snapping shots of the downtrodden,
of churches, bits of billboard, bored
debutantes at posh parties
you'd have to fast-talk your way into;
or aboard an ocean liner, itching
to disembark; down in the boiler room
waiting for the foreman to look away
so you can frame his profile
with an arabesque of pipes
and release valves. I'd want to be out
on assignment taking far fewer rolls
than I'm being paid for, down
south alongside sharecroppers
and the sunburnt poor—trying to steal
moments, not souls, to find the past
inside the present, catch the already
falling out of fashion.
The photographer and the artist, the musician and the poet all comment on the experience of the worker and the working poor. The FSA photographers were great artists - but they, too, needed a job. This poem came to me today in my email from American Public Radio and it seemed that it needed to be a part of the exhibit. Find the entire Writer's Almanac for the week of May 7, 2007 here